Irish agtech company Concept Dairy was named winner of the AgTechUCD startup award at this year’s Enterprise Ireland Innovation Arena Awards.

Based in Dublin, Concept Dairy was founded by Diarmaid Mac Colgáin and Jacqueline Fitzgerald and is focused on transforming the dairy industry by creating a transparent and fair platform where farmers can choose what price they get for their milk. In turn, processors are able to focus on processing rather than trading prices, the company says.

The milk pricing app is currently available to download and is free for farmers. The app provides current market prices for milk which are updated daily, showing farmers what their milk is worth.

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The platform will allow farmers to lock-in their milk price when they choose and they will also be able to opt-in to pay a fee to get the benefits from rising market prices above the minimum price they have locked in.

Concept Dairy has also developed a risk management platform for milk processors, which is focused on tracking and processing all physical and financial risk in one place.

The platform enables processors to understand their full risk profile, manage and mitigate future risks to protect the business, creating less negative impact on farmers’ milk prices.

Co-founder Mac Colgáin said: “The agtech startup space is highly competitive, so it is fantastic to receive this validation for Concept Dairy.

“Our next area of focus is to bring the app and risk management platform into new markets outside of Ireland, positively disrupting the $1tn dairy market in order to benefit farmers and processors alike.”

By winning this award, Concept Dairy has secured a place on AgTech UCD’s dedicated 12-week accelerator programme for agtech and agri-food startups with global potential, which begins in October.